I have been working now for 50 years – since
the foundation of Environmental Systems
Research Institute (Esri), in 1969 – on building
software tools that help different kinds of users
do their work better.
Some of this is daily management, some of it
is work flows but the power of GIS is the central
power, the heart of GIS is really remarkable. It’s
almost magical to me. So, I’m sort of
rediscovering myself and emphasising to all of
GIS users all over the world to make better
maps. Maps are about telling a story. Many of
the maps that users make are maps that don’t tell
a story. There are lines and dots and a text and
graphic display but they are not leveraging the
power of this communication language. So I
think of maps as a kind of language and we have
photographs and paintings – these are graphic
expressions of reality but a map is much more
powerful and we need to treat it as the power
that it has
